This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 87%. (I'm a bot)

When a crank was turned on the back of the doll, it operated a wee phonograph inside; bits of nursery rhymes recorded onto wax cylinders then "Played" from the doll.

Sound historians say the cylinders were the first entertainment records ever made, and the young girls hired to recite the rhymes were the world's first recording artists.

The Rolfs, a couple who collected Edison phonographs, had kept a pair of the dolls for years, but were afraid to "Play" them, for fear that the steel phonograph needle would damage the delicate wax after the space of a century.

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